Multichip packages with exposed dice

ABSTRACT

Multichip packages and methods for making same. The present invention generally allows for either the back of a flipchip, the back of a mother die, or both to be exposed in a multichip package. When the mother die is connected to the package contacts, the back of the flip chip is higher than the electrical connections. Accordingly, the back of the flip chip can be exposed. Furthermore, if a temporary tape substrate is used with a leadframe panel that does not have a die attach pad, the package can be even thinner. Once the temporary tape substrate is removed, both the back of the flipchip and the back of the mother die will be exposed from the encapsulant.

CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/890,896, filed on Jul. 13, 2004, which is a divisional of U.S. Pat. No. 6,936,929, filed on Mar. 17, 2003, both of which are incorporated herein by reference.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

1. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates generally to semiconductor packaging and more specifically to multichip semiconductor packaging.

2. Description of the Related Art

In an effort to produce smaller and lighter electrical devices there is a continuing effort to reduce the size of semiconductor components. Stacking multiple chips into a single package is one technique for reducing the footprint required for semiconductor devices.

There are several methods of designing a stacked package. FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of a common multichip package 100. Two dice 105 and 110 are each electrically connected to a substrate 115 via wire bonding 120 and 125. Each die 105 and 110 has an exclusive electrical link to the substrate 115. The multichip package 100 is arranged as a ball grid array (“BGA”), a type of package in which the input and output points are solder bumps arranged in a grid pattern.

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of another multichip package 200. A daughter die 205 is directly connected to a mother die 210 via wire bonding 215. Both the daughter die 205 and the mother die 210 are also connected directly to the substrate 220 via wire bonding 225 and 230.

Although the described packages work well in many applications, there are continuing efforts to further improve multichip packages.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a multichip assembly that has a flipchip, a mother die, contacts and an encapsulant. The face of the mother die is adapted to receive the face of the flipchip such that the flipchip is in direct electrical contact with the mother die. The mother die is in electrical contact with the contacts, which are used to connect the dice with components external to the package. The encapsulant is formed around the flipchip, mother die, and contacts such that the contacts are partially exposed and the back of the flipchip is partially exposed. Ensuring that the height of the encapsulant does not exceed the flipchip is one way of exposing the back of the flipchip.

In another aspect, the multichip assembly is characterized as a quad flat packs—no lead package, whereby the contacts were from a leadless leadframe panel.

In another aspect, a multichip assembly includes a chip stack, contacts and an encapsulant. The chip stack (a mother die electrically connected to a daughter die) is in electrical contact with the contacts and the encapsulant partially encapsulates them both. Typically, the partially exposed portion of the chip stack is either the bottom of the chip stack (usually the back of the mother die), the top of the chip stack (usually the back of the daughter die) or both.

In a method aspect of the invention, the multichip assembly is created by first providing a semiconductor wafer that has an array of mother dice. Then, flipchips are electrically connected to the wafer. Next, the wafer is singulated to create individual chip stacks. The chip stacks are then electrically connected to contacts on a leadframe panel. Next, encapsulant is added to the chip stack and leadframe panel such that encapsulant does exceed the height of the chip stack. Finally the encapsulated chip stack and leadframe panel is singulated to create individual multichip assemblies.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The invention may best be understood by reference to the following description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings in which:

FIG. 1 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of a prior art multichip package that allows both chips to have exclusive electrical connections to a BGA;

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of a prior art multichip package that allows a daughter die to be directly connected to a mother die in addition to both dice being connected to the BGA;

FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic plan view of a semiconductor wafer containing an array of flipchips;

FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic plan view of a semiconductor wafer illustrated in FIG. 3 after singulation;

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic plan view of a semiconductor wafer that can be used as a substrate for the singulated flipchips of FIG. 4;

FIG. 6 is a diagrammatic plan view of the semiconductor wafer of FIG. 5 after attachment of the singulated flipchips of FIG. 4;

FIG. 7A is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the wafer of FIG. 6;

FIG. 7B is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the wafer of FIG. 6 if underfill material is used;

FIG. 8A is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the wafer of 7A after singulation;

FIG. 8B is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the wafer of 7B after singulation;

FIG. 9A is a diagrammatic plan view of a leadless leadframe panel;

FIG. 9B is a diagrammatic plan view of a device area array in an enlargement of FIG. 9A;

FIG. 9C is a diagrammatic plan view of a device area in an enlargement of FIG. 9B;

FIG. 10 is a diagrammatic cross section view of the singulated chip stacks of FIG. 8A after attachment on the leadless leadframe panel of FIGS. 9A-9C;

FIG. 11 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the mounted chip stacks of FIG. 10 after wire bonding;

FIG. 12 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the mounted chip stacks of FIG. 11 after encapsulation;

FIG. 13 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the mounted chip stacks of FIG. 12 after singulation;

FIG. 14 is a diagrammatic cross section view of the singulated chip stacks of FIG. 8A after attachment to a temporary tape substrate;

FIG. 15 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the chip stacks of FIG. 14 after wire bonding;

FIG. 16 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the mounted chip stacks of FIG. 15 after encapsulation;

FIG. 17 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the mounted chip stacks of FIG. 16 after singulation;

FIG. 18 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of a package that includes a heat spreader;

FIG. 19 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of a package that maintains a thin layer of encapsulant over the chip stack; and

FIG. 20 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of a package that includes an additional die.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS

In the following description, numerous specific details are set forth to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention. It will be apparent, however, to one skilled in the art that the present invention may be practiced without some or all of these specific details. In other instances, well known process steps have not been described in detail in order to avoid unnecessarily obscuring the present invention.

The present invention generally allows for very thin multichip assemblies. Generally, a flipchip is first attached to a mother die so that only the mother die needs to be electrically connected with the package contacts. When the mother die is connected to the package contacts, the back of the flip chip is typically higher than the electrical connections. Since the encapsulant only needs to be high enough to fully encapsulate the means for electrical connection (e.g., gold wire bonds), the encapsulant does not need to cover the flip chip. Accordingly, the back of the flip chip can be exposed. Furthermore, if a temporary tape substrate is used with a leadframe panel that does not have a die attach pad, the package can be even thinner. Once the temporary tape substrate is removed, both the back of the flipchip and the back of the mother die will be exposed from the encapsulant.

FIG. 3 is a diagrammatic plan view of an exemplary semiconductor wafer 300 that can be used in the present invention. The wafer 300 contains an array of semiconductor dice. Each die 305 is separated from the other dice by saw streets 310, which are where the wafer 300 will be cut during the dicing process. The dice are designed to be in a flipchip assembly and each die 305 has a set of conductive bumps 315. A flipchip assembly is generally defined as the direct electrical connection of face-down (“flipped”) electronic components onto substrates by means of conductive bumps. A “mother chip” is the substrate in a multichip assembly.

Common conductive bumps include solder bumps, plated bumps, stud bumps and adhesive bumps. The conductive bumps not only provide an electrically conductive path from the flipchip to the substrate, but can also provide thermally conductive paths to carry heat from the flipchip to the substrate and act as part of the mechanical mounting of the flipchip to the substrate.

One of the benefits to using a flipchip assembly is that most of the processing can be completed on the wafer level. FIG. 4 is a diagrammatic plan view of the exemplary semiconductor wafer 300 after it has been singulated with a saw 405. Once the flipchips are singulated, they are ready to be attached to a substrate.

It should be noted that in the illustrated wafer 300, only a relatively small number of dice are shown. However, as will be appreciated by those skilled in the art, state of the art wafers typically include hundreds or thousands of dice on a single wafer.

FIG. 5 is a diagrammatic plan view of an exemplary semiconductor wafer 500 that can be used as the substrate for flipchips that are created after singulating the wafer 300 of FIG. 3. The wafer/substrate 500 contains an array of semiconductor dice with each die 505 separated from other dice by saw streets 510. Each die 505 will eventually function as a mother die 505, and is designed to receive the conductive bumps 315 of the flipchip 305 (the daughter die) on substrate pads 515. Each mother die 505 additionally has bonding pads 520 that are eventually used to electrically connect the mother die 505 with package leads.

FIG. 6 is a diagrammatic plan view of the wafer 500 after flipchip attachment. The attachment process may or may not include underfill material. FIGS. 7A and 7B are diagrammatic cross sectional views of the wafer 500 of FIG. 6. In FIG. 7A no underfill material is used, and in FIG. 7B, an underfill 705 is used between the flipchip 305 and the mother die 505. The underfill 705 is useful if the mechanical bond between the conductive bumps 315 of the flipchip 305 and the substrate pads 515 of the mother die 505 are not strong enough to withstand singulation of the wafer 500 or other assembly operations.

FIGS. 8A and 8B are diagrammatic cross sectional views of the wafer 500 and flipchip after singulation with a saw 805. FIG. 8A is a shows the flipchips attached to mother dice without any underfill material, and FIG. 8B shows the flipchips attached to mother dice using underfill material 705.

Once singulated, the chip stacks 810 are packaged. FIG. 9A is a diagrammatic plan view of a leadless leadframe panel 900. A leadless leadframe package (“LLP”) is a relatively new integrated circuit package design that contemplates the use of a conductive (typically copper) leadframe-type substrate structure in the formation of a chip scale package (“CSP”). The resulting packages are sometimes referred to as quad flat packs—no lead (QFN) packages. The leadless leadframe panel 900 is patterned (typically by stamping or etching) to define a plurality of device areas, which form semiconductor device area arrays. FIG. 9B is a diagrammatic plan view of a device area array 905 in an enlarged view of the leadless leadframe panel 900. FIG. 9C is a diagrammatic plan view of a device area 910 isolated from the device area array 905. Each device area 910 includes a die attach pad 915 and a plurality of contacts 920 disposed about their associated die attach pad 915. Very fine tie bars 925 are used to support the die attach pad 915 and very fine support bars 930 are used to support the contacts 920.

FIG. 10 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the chip stack 810 on a die attach pad 915 of the leadless leadframe panel 900. The bottom of the contacts 920 of the leadframe panel 900 are shown being half-etched 1005. Those skilled in the art will appreciate that different styles of leadless leadframe panels can be used, including those that are half-etched on the top of the contacts and those with solid contacts (no half-etching).

Once the entire leadframe panel 900 is populated with chip stacks, the mother chips are electrically connected to the contacts 920. FIG. 11 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the chip stack 810 electrically coupled to the contacts 920 with gold wire bonds 1105. It should be appreciated that TAB or other suitable mechanisms could be used to electrically couple the mother chip 505 to the contacts 920.

FIG. 12 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the chip stack 810 and leadless leadframe panel 900 after encapsulation. Typically, an opaque plastic is used as an encapsulant 1205. The encapsulant 1205 serves several purposes, including holding the gold wire bonds 1105 in place, protecting the chip stack 810 and, if no underfill material 705 was used, ensuring the flipchip 305 is held to the mother chip 505.

If the gold wire bonds 1105 do not extend beyond the height of the flipchip 305, the encapsulant 1205 does not need to be filled beyond the height of the flipchip 305. Therefore, the back of the flipchip 305 can be either completely or partially exposed.

FIG. 13 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the final multichip assembly 1305. After the encapsulant 1205 hardens, the packages 1305 are singulated from each other.

The final multichip assembly 1305 of FIG. 13 can be made even thinner by eliminating the die attach pad 920. FIG. 14 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the chip stack 810 on a temporary tape substrate 1405. The temporary tape substrate 1405 is underneath a DAPless leadless leadframe panel 1410 that does not have a die attach pad. FIG. 15 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the chip stack 810 in electrical contact with the DAPless leadless leadframe panel 1410. FIG. 16 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the chip stack 810 and DAPless leadless leadframe panel 1410 after encapsulation with an encapsulant 1605. FIG. 17 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of the final DAPless multichip assembly 1705 after singulation and the temporary tape substrate 1405 has been removed. Clearly, the final DAPless multichip assembly 1705 is thinner than the final multichip assembly 1305 shown in FIG. 13 because of that assembly's inclusion of the die attach pad 915.

FIG. 18 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of another multichip assembly 1805 in accordance with another embodiment of the invention. A heat spreader 1805, which is typically a thin layer of metal, is attached to the back of the flipchip 305 in order to improve thermal performance.

FIG. 19 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of another multichip assembly 1905 in accordance with another embodiment of the invention. A thin layer of encapsulant 1910 covers the back of the flipchip 305 in order to provide additional shielding for the flipchip 305.

FIG. 20 is a diagrammatic cross sectional view of another multichip assembly 2005 in accordance with another embodiment of the invention in which an additional die 2010 is included in the multichip assembly 2005. A spacer 2015 separates the additional die 2010 from the mother die 505 of the chip stack 810. The mother die 505 and the additional die 2010 are both electrically connected to the DAPless leadless leadframe panel 1410.

Although illustrative embodiments and applications of this invention are shown and described herein, many variations and modifications are possible which remain within the concept, scope, and spirit of the invention, and these variations would become clear to those of ordinary skill in the art. For example, the chips can be individually molded and mechanically singulated. Also, in certain applications it might be beneficial to use well known modifications, such as a clear mold compound as the encapsulant for imaging applications or back-coating the exposed dice in order to prevent light from interfering with the circuitry. Accordingly, the present embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention is not to be limited to the details given herein, but may be modified within the scope and equivalents of the appended claims. 

1. A method of packaging integrated circuits comprising: providing a semiconductor wafer that has an array of mother dice formed therein; mounting a multiplicity of singulated daughter dice on the wafer, each daughter die being mounted on an associated mother die and electrically connected to the mother die by direct soldering using a flip chip mounting approach, wherein the daughter dice have shorter lengths and widths than the mother dice such that the mother dice have at least some contacts that are exposed relative to their respective daughter dice, and wherein the wafer having the array of mother dice has not been diced or singulated prior to the mounting of the daughter dice.
 2. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising dicing the semiconductor wafer having daughter dice mounted onto the mother dice on the wafer to create a multiplicity of individual chip stacks.
 3. A method as recited in claim 1, further comprising underfilling the regions beneath the daughter dice between the daughter and mother dice at the wafer level.
 4. A method of packaging integrated circuits comprising: positioning a plurality of multi-chip stacks on a lead frame panel having a multiplicity of device areas, wherein each chip stack consists of a mother die having an active surface and a daughter die having an active surface, the active surface of the daughter die being flip chip mounted to the active surface of the mother die, and wherein each chip stack is positioned in an associated device area; electrically connecting contacts on the mother dice of the selected chip stacks to contacts within their associated device area; encapsulating the device areas of the lead frame panel; and singulating the device areas after the encapsulation to create a multiplicity of individual stacked multi-chip packages.
 5. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the daughter dice have shorter lengths and widths than the mother dice such that the mother dice have at least some contacts that are exposed relative to their respective daughter dice.
 6. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the lead frame device area does not include a die attach pad and wherein positioning the chip stacks includes placing the chip stacks on a temporary tape substrate that is also adhered to a back surface of the lead frame panel, the method further comprising removing the temporary tape substrate after the encapsulation.
 7. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the encapsulation covers back surfaces of the daughter dice.
 8. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the encapsulation is arranged to expose back surfaces of the daughter dice.
 9. A method as recited in claim 4, further comprising applying heat spreaders to back surfaces of the daughter dice before the encapsulation.
 10. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein the resulting multi-chip packages are quad flat packs—no lead packages.
 11. A method as recited in claim 4, wherein selected multi-chip stacks are each mounted on a third die mounted within a device area of the lead frame panel, wherein contacts on said third dice are electrically connected to contacts within their associated device areas.
 12. A method as recited in claim 11, further comprising electrically connecting contacts on the mother dice of the selected multi-chip stacks to contacts within their associated device areas.
 13. A method as recited in claim 11, wherein a spacer is positioned between a mother die and a third die. 